As Heard on The Stephanie Miller Show

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Seems that every year I have to go through this....to explain why this so-called "War on Christmas" is so idiotic....and deal with the idiots who keep this stupidity going.

Consider, if you will, the fdact that between the fourth Thursday in November and the second day of January, we go through Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Kwanzah, Christmas, and the non-Jewish new year. That's five holidays in 42 days, give or take a day. For some that's a lot to remember. And, a lot of people you might wind up disrespecting.

I mean, thanks to the wonderful folks at Wikipedia, here are ALL the holidays one has to keep track of:

Winter greetings are often strung together. The English greetings often begin with saying "Have a...", written "Wishing you a..." or sometimes end in "...to all!" as a declaration.Happy Holidays - Canada, United StatesBuone Feste - ItalianFelices Fiestas - SpanishSeason's Greetings - Usually refers to upcoming winter holidays, but technically could refer to any season.Happy Thanksgiving - Canada, United StatesHappy Turkey, short for Happy Turkey Day - United States (informal), referencing the traditional meal.Merry Christmas - Australia, United States, The phrase is often immediately followed by and a Happy New Year.Happy Christmas - United KingdomMerry Xmas - Written English (often informal), referencing the Greek word Χριστος, for Christ.Merry Yuletide, Good Yuletide or Happy Yuletide - English, can generally refer to the period of cultural festivities surrounding Yule, Winter solstice, Christmas and the New Year.Merry Midwinter - English greeting, generally for the period of the winter solstice.God jul - Swedish, Norwegian, lit. "Good Yule"Hyvää joulua - FinnishGlædelig jul - DanishJoyous Yule - Usually a Wiccan or Neopagan greeting for the Winter solsticeJoyeux Noël - France, Quebec, Louisiana, SwitzerlandBuon Natale - ItalyFrohe Weihnachten/Fröhliche Weihnachten - German for Merry ChristmasMele Kalikimaka - Hawaiian, is preferred over the traditional American "Merry Christmas" in the U.S. state of Hawaii; made popular worldwide by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters in 1950 in songNollaig Shona Duit - Ireland, (Irish Language), lit. "You have a happy Christmas".S'Rozhdestvom Kristovym! (С Рождеством Христовым!) or, more commonly, simply S Rozhdestvom! for the informal Christmas greeting, while the traditional religious greeting is Khrystos razhdayetsya! (Христос рождается, meaning "Christ is born!") and the traditional response is Slavite! (Cлавите!, meaning "Let us glorify him!"). - Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic countriesFeliz Navidad - Spanish lit. "Happy Nativity"Happy Kwanzaa - English greeting used before Kwanzaa.Wesołych Świąt - Polish greeting used before Christmas (literally 'Happy Christmas').Habari Gani - Swahili for "What's the news?" is the daily greeting for each of the seven days of Kwanzaa.Happy Hanukkah or Happy Chanukah - EnglishChag Sameach - Hebrew for "Joyous festival", used for most Jewish festivals.Gut Yontiff - Yiddish for "good holiday" used for non festival holidays.L'Shanah Tovah - Hebrew, Lit. "a good year". Common greeting during Rosh Hashanah and Days of Awe. It is derived from L'shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem, lit. "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year".Have an easy fast - the solemn greeting for Yom Kippur.Happy New Year - often yelled at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve.Kul 'am wa enta bi-khair - Arabic for "May every year find you in good health"Taqabbala Allahu minna wa minkum. - "May God accept from us, and from you."‘Īd mubārak - "Blessed Eid" is used to greet at the end of Ramadan on Eid ul-Fitr‘Īd sa‘īd - "Happy Eid"Bayramınız Mübarek Olsun - TurkeySelamat Hari Raya or Salam Aidilfitri - Malay and Indonesianmaaf lahir dan batin - Lit. "Forgive my physical and emotional (wrongdoings)"Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_holidays

That's a lot to remember.

Then there are those who are atheists......or maybe should be.

So, many of us simply say "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons' Greetings," just to be on the safe side with folks we don't know and the proper "Merry/Happy Cristmas/Chanukah/Kwanza" tho those we know if it applies, and we think nothing of if.

Unless you are Bill O'Reilly. Or Donald "NoNeck" Wildmon. Or any of the Christmas Warriors who have been takinbg up precious oxygen for the past 8 years because of this.

Prime offender: the American Family ASSociation, Wildmon's group. Brer NoNeck, when he is notrailing against television programs that do not suit his xenophobic/homophobic nature, has harrased companies like Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy.

This years bulleyes are attached to PetSmart and Old Navy.

The war against PetSmart is pers onal to me because a person I am very fond of works at a local store. I do notknow how she feels about this phony controversy, burt she is a good person, and people who hire good people these days deserve to be patronized. Even more so if they are respectful to all

But the real headache comes in terms of Old Navy. Old Navy has said HH instead of MC for years. But leave it to NoNeck and his Tupelo Posse to try to mak a mountain out of...well, there isn't even a molehill.

In my email today:

Help Sink Old Navy's Blockade

Dear Donald,You would think a company that gets the vast majority of its business from Christians would be respectful of its customers.Such is true of companies that don't have an anti-Christian bias. But not at OldNavy. Old Navy has put a blockade around Christmas. Old Navy, Gap and BananaRepublic are owned by the same company. And all three boycott Christmas. Atthese stores, Christmas isn't allowed because a handful of non-Christians areoffended.

STOP RIGHT THERE! That "handful" of people includes a Jewish population in this country which ranges from 4 to 7 million people, up to 2.5% of the country. That would fill a big hand. Add a nearly extra million for atheists, and that's a lot of people...who spend money.

Old Navy doesn't want to offend non-Christians. But they sure don't worry aboutoffending Christians. They will take your money, but they will not recognizeChristmas. Old Navy doesn't sell Christmas gifts. They sell "holiday" gifts.They don't close their stores on Christmas. They close on "holiday." They don'tobserve "Christmas morning," they observe "holiday morning." They don't wishcustomers a "Merry Christmas." They wish them a "happy holiday." Old Navyboycotts Christmas.

Such parsing. This guys's worse than Bill Clinton.

Old Navy has been boycotting Christmas for years. And despite thousands andthousands of requests to recognize Christmas, they refuse to do so. In fact, OldNavy is so adamant about boycotting Christmas that they have blocked incominge-mails requesting they recognize Christmas. When an Old Navy store manager wasasked if the word "Christmas" was used in his store, he answered: "We have a lotof Christmas gifts in our stores, but the word 'Christmas' is not used here.Everything is 'holiday.'" Old Navy even makes a joke of Christmas by offeringvideo greetings called "Happy Chrismukkah."

At least it's not Virgin Mobile. Happy Chrismahakwanzakaa, people.

Everyone has the option to say what they believe. But having shoved down your throat. My suggestion is to shop Old Navy, PetSmart, Virgin Mobile, and anyone else who has told these "protectors of the Baby Jesus," thatwhen you say "HappyHolidays," you INCLUDE Christians too.!

Sunday, December 09, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While the appearance of nine presidential candidates was the major coup for this upstart convention – this was only its second year of existence – there were plenty of other attractions for an undercover progressive at the 2007 Values Voter Summit.

Take, for instance, the panel titled "The 'Right' Women of the House," featuring two of the few conservative congresswomen who survived the 2006 election, Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Jean Schmidt (R-Oh.).

Of course, any panel on conservative women will feature reproduction issues, and right away, moderator (and Family Research Council Vice-President) Connie Mackey assured the crowd that in politics, "When you are not in line with a pro-abortion stance, you cease to be a woman."

Blackburn claimed that liberals are afraid to have children because "they fear having the responsibility of raising that child. Maybe they fear what is going to happen if they have to take charge and impart those values... I have one child that turned 27 and one who's turning 30 in a couple of weeks. I did not want it to take a village to raise those children; I wanted me and my husband" – the last words of that none-too-subtle slam of Hillary Clinton having been drown out by thunderous applause.

Schmidt was just a bit upset about "some school systems that actually want to give 11-year-old children contraceptives with or without parental notification. That's absolutely wrong... The other thing that I have a problem with is trying to mandate 11-year-olds to get that drug that they're trying to force on kids [anti-HPV vaccine Gardasil]. You don't know what effects that drug will have on children in their future, but more importantly, what's the message that sends to 11-year-old girls? Think about the message that it sends: 'We don’t trust you, so therefore we're going to protect you'? Again, it undermines women's rights, mothers' rights, parents' rights."

So what's the solution to rampant children's rights to contraception and even abortion? Well, aside from defunding Planned Parenthood, as Schmidt is trying to do in Congress, "That is why federal judges – good, Constitution-loving federal judges – are so very important. It's one of the reasons we're going to see such importance placed on our next presidential election, because who is sitting on the bench really matters," Blackburn assured.

The other answer, of course, was abstinence education, which Blackburn said was "important to women, to future generations and to our children in school," because, according to Schmidt, "among the things that happen to young women, when they are very sexually active, and active with more than one partner, they compromise their future health, and we know this: They get cervical cancer if they're sexually active." Apparently, the fact that giving "11-year-old girls" anti-HPV vaccines would prevent this wasn't a connection that a conservative congresswoman could make. And don't even get her started on stem cell research!

Schmidt managed to get the last word: "I want to speak more generally to next November's election, and how important it is that we stand behind whatever candidate comes out that will be [Hillary Clinton's] rival, and stand behind that man, whether we agree with all of their values or not, because if we don't, you will have that woman in the White House."

The Summit also featured a "debate" between conservative minister Dr. Richard Land and liberal theologian Jim Wallis, and it didn't take long before each marked his territory.

"We both agree that it is not whether faith should shape our public values, but how," Wallis said, suggesting the possibility that people of good character could have legitimate differences regarding religion in the public square ... but of course, Land was having none of that.

"Americans want to bring their faith to bear on public policy," Land claimed, and promised that they would do so when "we are free of our secular captivity."

That "faith," Land said, would help rid the country of, among other evils, abortion, gays and gay marriage, and bans on the 10 Commandments and prayer on public property and in public schools – and this despite the fact that a CBS poll of evangelicals revealed, according to Wallis, that the flock thought that fighting poverty was way more important than fighting abortion.

"I want to help poor children," Land claimed, "but I can't help them if they're killed before they're born... If mothers would marry the fathers of their children, that would eliminate more poverty than anything we could do."

"A world where half the people live in extreme poverty is neither just nor secure," Wallis retorted. "We must not pit the unborn against the poorest of the earth."

Hey, these guys couldn't even agree whether "the environment is clearly on the mainstream of the evangelical agenda" and should therefore be protected (Wallis), or "the Bible says the earth is for human betterment" and therefore, exploit away (Land). But is there any doubt about who got the most applause?

But it turns out that those damned "secular progressives" are everywhere. Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) founder Alan Sears related the story of Emily Brooker, who majored in social work at Missouri State University ... until her teacher gave the class an "outrageous assignment": "They were told to go out, display homosexual behavior in public, and then write about the experience."

A "stunned" Emily wound up faking her report, "made up the experience, made up the reactions of the people that supposedly watched, got her grade, and the professor was none the wiser." But when a professor during her senior year required the class to write letters to the Missouri legislature supporting same-sex adoption, that was the last straw: She refused ... and the prof filed a grievance against her with the university.

"For two and a half hours," Sears reported, "the faculty grilled her with taunting questions. They mocked her Christian beliefs. They bullied this young girl and poured out contempt on her personal convictions and her faith in God." She responded by suing, using free ADF attorneys ... and won!

"The school settled with Emily and landed on its own social work department like the Marines at Iwo Jima!" Sears exclaimed. "Problems in the department were so bad that the university decided to disband the entire department and rebuild a new social work program from scratch! ... It shows that when we fight, we can win!"

Author – and former unwed welfare mother – Star Parker spoke next, pontificating like a lay preacher in coming out four-square against anything that remotely sounded like "secularism."

"This battle is a battle of worldviews," she assured. "We have a secular worldview that is fighting against a biblical worldview... The biblical worldview is rooted in the kingdom of God and the secular worldview is rooted in the kingdom of man... This war has four fronts. One of those fronts is the family, and I'm telling you, the sexual revolution began at the same time that we were having a civil rights movement, and it hit black America hard.... Our politics, religious politics, is rooted in the color of our soul.... Redistribution of wealth is inconsistent with scripture. The Tenth Commandment says 'don't covet' and socialism is rooted in covetousness.... We have the body and blood of Christ; they have the body and blood of babies.... Hate crime legislation today has developed into the promotion of sodomy ... and affirmative action has developed into nothing more than the promotion of sodomy. The Lord was very clear about how he wanted us to govern our sexual behaviors and patterns, and the top three social problems confronting us as a nation today are due to sexual immorality: AIDS, abortion and the welfare state." (You knew she'd get around to sex sometime, didn't you?)

There was plenty more, and this woman didn't miss a trick.

An actual preacher spoke next: Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a former Afrikaner, and according to People for the American Way, is "one of the Religious Right’s favorite Rabbis for his efforts to broker an alliance between Jews and evangelical Christians over social issues."

"I know exactly what you're thinking," he began. "You're all saying to yourselves, 'What on earth is an orthodox Jewish rabbi doing in a room with nearly 3,000 Christians?'"

But they weren't; they already knew who he was: An unqualified Bush supporter, an apologist for Christians accused of anti-Semitism and head of an organization dedicated to "a partnering of Jews and Christians to strengthen America and its allies," among other things.

Lapin spent his 15 minutes trying to convince those few in the crowd who didn't already believe it that American law, and particularly the Constitution, is based on the Bible, right down to the Great Seal, declaring at one point, "The Bible is our blueprint, the bible fuels our faith, and the Bible powers the politics and the passion of our politics. Remember that politics is nothing more than the practical application of our most deeply held values."

"Obviously, it is important to all of us that homosexual marriage not become the law of the land," he continued without missing a beat. "Let me tell you, for every logical argument we can bring to show that it is a very bad idea, the other side, spreading the stain of secular socialism, will bring three better arguments that it's a very good idea, and then it's simply our argument against theirs. We believe that killing an unborn child is a terrible idea, and for every good, logical explanation we can give as to why it's a terrible idea, the other side, spreading their sordid stain of secular socialism, will find better arguments, and then it's nothing but their arguments against ours. In the final analysis, we have to have the courage to say that the reason homosexual marriage is something we oppose is because the Bible says so."

Not exactly an argument for separation of church and state, eh? But don't'cha just love that "sordid stain of secular socialism"?

Defeated Sen. Rick Santorum (R-www.spreadingsantorum.com) also got several minutes on the first afternoon of the conference, and he decided it was his job to tell the approximately 200 news reporters present "a little bit about us so they can report their stories accurately." (Of course, any "reporter" who needed that "help" would be fit only to report for supermarket tabloids.)

"The foundation of our country is a faith in the divine creator who made us in his image to know, love and serve him by loving one another," Santorum lied. "It is not man's perspective that is reflected in our founding documents; it is God's perspective.... It is not how man views freedom, which is simply to do whatever pleases you, but the Judeo-Christian perspective which tethers freedom with responsibility to someone or something greater and more important than the self.... This weekend you are here to determine who among those who seek to be the leader of this great ideal, America, is best able to shine the light in the darkness. Many in this room and across the country are concerned about whether there is such a candidate running for president in '08. Is there a candidate who truly shares our values? Is there a candidate who can convincingly articulate this worldview? The answer is, there must be, and we must fight to assure there is."

Yep, he's gotta be running!

Friday afternoon's final speaker was Paul Weyrich, founder of one of the seminal neocon organizations, Free Congress Foundation, and an early supporter of Mitt Romney – but today, his topic was the Fairness Doctrine, the prospect of the return of which didn't make him happy.

"There was a study produced by the Center for American Progress [CAP] and Free Press," Weyrich reported, "and this study purported to look at conservative talk radio, and it concluded that the owners of stations that carried conservative talk radio were not in the public interest, or at least were in a position where they ought to be reviewed."

Imagine that!

"But let me tell you about this study," he continued. "It was made up of only 2.275% of the country's radio stations. There are 11,297 commercial stations in the United States. The main person who initiated this report was one John Podesta; you probably remember him from the Clinton administration. Well, he ignored 11,040 radio stations, roughly 98%, and since we're talking about talk radio, he ignored 80% of news-talk stations in the United States. He studied only 257 radio stations."

Of course, Weyrich omitted the fact that the analysis was only meant to cover conservative and progressive talk radio, purposely omitting sports and general talk stations from the study, and studied only stations owned by the top five commercial station owners – the ones with the heaviest market penetration in the U.S. – and oddly enough, the report concluded that 91% of the talk on those five owners' stations (2,570.25 hours) was conservative while just 9% (254 hours) was progressive – and that 92% of the stations studied (236) didn't broadcast one single minute of progressive talk!

"Here is the approach that these people have suggested [to rectify the imbalance]," Weyrich claimed. "If move-on.org or somebody else complains, you can lose your license, or if you would like to retain your license, here is what they suggest: You could just contribute between 3 and 8% of your profits to National Public Radio."

Um, no. What the report actually recommends is that ownership of radio stations by a single entity be capped at no more than 5% of total stations; that licensees be required to report publicly on how the station serves the public interest in a variety of areas – and that if stations refuse to abide by the guidelines, that a fine should be levied – they call it a "spectrum use fee" – which, yes, would go to public radio.

So, of course, Weyrich is going to come out with a "counter-study" that will undoubtedly obscure the findings of the CAP study, and he urged attendees to disseminate that to station owners.

After a rhetoric-filled speech by conservative radio talk host Mark Levin on Saturday morning – he claimed that 10% of Supreme Court justices have been senile; that we're fighting "7th century barbarians" in Iraq; that "we [conservatives] stand for the union members, they [liberals] stand for the union bosses"(!); and that "a moral order is the glue that keeps this society together" – came time for the Summit's most interesting panel, "Spin City: Countering the Media's Primetime Bias," featuring some of the wingnuts' best spinners: San Diego-based Limbaugh imitator Roger Hedgecock; Myrna Blyth, author of "Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America"; Wall St. Journal columnist John Fund; and National Review editor Rich Lowry.

"Spin isn't confined to the national media," Hedgecock charged, citing everything from the controversy over the Mt. Soledad cross to the fight over California's school curriculum anti-discrimination law.

For Blyth, Hillary Clinton's recent guest shot on "The View" was "a love fest; no tough questions," and she faulted a Newsweek cover story on "Women of Power" for featuring Arianna Huffington, "a woman whose politics has changed more often than her hair color."

"Women in media are a club," Blyth claimed. "They tend to agree with each other. They have great influence, because remember, women watch television, read magazines – they are the great consumers of media in this country, and the women who are what I call the 'spin sisters' tend to all agree with each other, only know women like each other, and therefore don't think they're biased. They really think they are kind of middle of the road, no matter how biased they may be."

Amazingly, no one thought to hold a mirror – or a copy of the daily Republican National Committee talking points – up to Blyth in response to that bit of hypocrisy.

According to Fund, a frequent Fox Noise Channel guest, "What's being practiced by some parts of the mainstream media is a form of psychological warfare." Seems he thinks that the liberal media "declare[s] the [presidential] campaign over before it even begins," and somehow convinces the overwhelmingly "center-right" electorate that they don't have to think about the issues.

"What happens here is not so much bias as it is an attempt to sort of demoralize the opposition," he concluded.

Lowry seconded the thought, claiming, "There are a lot of honorable reporters out there who are basically dealing with a cultural problem: They live and swim in and exist entirely in a liberal culture, and they do not know people who are like us, who think like us and believe the same things we do, so very often-times, they don't know their own biases."

He, too, could have used a mirror. But then again, he claimed to have a "Run, Hillary, Run" bumpersticker on his front bumper ...

One of the big draws that morning was the appearance of 80-year-old retired appeals court judge Robert Bork, who only confirmed, for anyone with ears to hear, how lucky the country is that this jackass wasn't confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.

Why? Check it out:

• "For social conservatives and values voters, among which I count myself, the crucial issue, I think, is which party is going to get to choose the justices for the Supreme Court, because our domestic culture, our domestic morality is being made by the Supreme Court; you all know that. Law is a crucial element of American culture and the rule of law is the foundation of our freedoms, and activist judges, of which we have a surplus, destroy that. Democrats are determined to appoint activist judges, who will enact, as if it were constitutional doctrine, the liberal left agenda. Consider what will happen if our next justices are chosen and confirmed by Hillary Clinton, Patrick Leahy and Harry Reid. There probably will be two to five vacancies, and you will get more and younger Ruth Ginsburgs and Stephen Breyers. The Court will be lost to values voters like ourselves for the next 20 to 30 years."

• "I need hardly remind this audience of where the activist Court has taken us so far. For one thing, as you know, religion is regarded as toxic and has become anathema. On the subject of religion and speech, we have now reached the point where the First Amendment has become farcical. Ted Olsen noted that the Court has simultaneously held that nude dancing is expressive – we need not ask what it expresses – and therefore constitutionally protected while high school students may not be allowed to pray before a football game that no one be injured. Ted said that since nude dancing is preferred to prayer as a form of communication, students should consider dancing naked before games."

• "Though the American people rejected the Equal Rights Amendment, Justice Ginsburg boasted that the Court had nevertheless read the substance of the ERA into law as effectively as if the American people had adopted it. The court has created special rights for homosexuals, and seems clearly on the way to making same-sex marriage a constitutional right. The Court now protects the rawest pornography as free speech and has created rules that make it virtually impossible to prosecute even obscenities." [Lie!]

• [Speaking of Rush Limbaugh] "I think there's a dangerous dislike of free speech, particularly on the left, and it's been a long time since the government attacked a private citizen because it didn't like his speech and it was too effective. That demonstrates an authoritarian mood in the Democratic Party not seen in America for a very long time." [Lie!]

• "But it appears there may be worse to come. The Court has begun injecting itself into our war against radical Islam. This is unprecedented judicial imperialism which, if it continues, will surely hamper our war efforts and will needlessly cost military and civilian lives."

["Our war against radical Islam"??? Thanks, Bork, for confirming the rest of the world's deepest fears that the U.S. is actually on a religious crusade in Iraq!]

• "Andrew McCarthy, who is a superb commentator, reminds us that the Founders designed a Constitution that left the conduct of war to the President.... McCarthy writes, 'Judicial gutting of presidential discretion in the collection of foreign intelligence is not an aberration; it is of a piece with judicial usurpation of the Commander-in-Chief's discretion to manage the confinement and trial of enemy combatants, of the Commander-in-Chief's discretion to determine the parameters of the battlefield and the president's discretion to interpret treaties.' The Supreme Court, in defiance of every understanding of the Geneva Conventions, which clearly does not apply to al Qaeda, the Supreme Court nevertheless rewrote, in effect, the Geneva Convention so that it did apply to enemy combatants."

Jesus! Did Bork actually just say he would have given Bush carte blanche to do anything he wanted with the Iraqi and Afghani prisoners of war?

Bork also opposed Republicans defecting to some third-party candidate, because if a Democrat wins the presidency, "[it] will mean that for 20 or 30 years, Roe will be entrenched and will not be overruled, and all of the other kinds of decisions I've cited will be entrenched and further outrages will be performed."

After that, what is there left to say ... except that perhaps progressives would be wise to take brain-case San Diego talker Laura Ingraham's advice to conservatives from later that afternoon, when she channeled Cher's character in Moonstruck, telling the audience, "My message to you today is, 'Snap out of it!'"

Because if the "values voters" – or at least their handlers – know one thing, it's that The War is coming home.

And progressives should know that if they don't win that war at the ballot box, they'll have to win it in the streets.

Friday, December 07, 2007

SF Talk show host indicted for child porn(Photo/KGOam810.com)San Francisco radio talk show host Bernie Ward has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of using the Internet to send and receive child pornography.

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco radio talk show host Bernie Ward has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of using the Internet to send and receive child pornography, his lawyer said today.The indictment is under seal, but the charges were confirmed by Ward's lawyer, Doron Weinberg, and by his employer, KGO radio.

Weinberg said Ward, 56, pleaded not guilty to the indictment before a federal magistrate in San Francisco today.

He said Ward is due to reappear in court in late January before U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker for a status conference and scheduling of a trial date.

Weinberg said the case stems from an "error of judgment" Ward made when he spent a few days in 2004 looking at pornography images and exchanging images with other adults when doing research for a book on hypocrisy.

The attorney said, "It's really tragic that the government has decided to prosecute him for a judgment he made as a journalist and to treat him as a child pornographer when he is not."

KGO Operations Director Jack Swanson said the station is for the time replacing Ward with a substitute on his two shows - a nighttime 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. show Monday through Friday and a Sunday morning show calledGodtalk.

Swanson said, "Bernie Ward has been a valued, longtime employee of KGO Radio. We were just recently made aware of these serious charges and are surprised and concerned by their nature."

Swanson said, "As the matter is currently pending in federal court, we will have no additional comment at this time."

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco, which is prosecuting the case, could not be reached for comment.

Weinberg said the indictment was issued in late October but prosecutors agreed to keep it sealed while Ward conducted his annual Thanksgiving Charities drive, which according to KGO raises thousands of dollars annually for hungry and homeless people in the Bay Area.

Weinberg said he expects the indictment to be unsealed within the next few days, following Ward's court appearance today.

Weinberg said Ward wanted to learn about the culture of child pornography because he planned to include hypocrisy about pornography in his book. Ward never finished the book because the FBI searched his house and seized his hard drive in early 2005, the attorney said.

"It may have been an error of judgment, but he was not doing it to exploit children," Weinberg said.Ward lives in San Francisco and is married and has four children.— Bay City News

Friday, November 30, 2007

Evel Knievel Dies at 69

By MITCH STACY – 47 minutes ago

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose exploits made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Knievel's death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Knievel had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Max Blumenthal's latest takes us on a shocking and at times bizarre tour of right-wing Pastor John Hagee's annual Washington-Israel Summit, blowing the cover off the Christian Zionist movement in the process. Starring Joe Lieberman, Tom DeLay, Pastor John Hagee, Ambassador Dore Gold and a host of rapture-ready evangelicals praying for Armaggedon

Please understand that people of this mindset are controlling George W. Bush.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Before you play this, I need to let you know that I was.....and still am....very angry when I did this....it shows.

I am sick and tired of every time somebody wants a raise in the country, in an industry that effects my life in some way shape or form, we........I.......wind up as low man on the totem pole.

SO basically I let everyone have it, and if certain words offend you, you may not want to hear. But basically, the question I want to pose to the various nudniks involved in all sides of the latest "job action..."......do you realize WHO pays your salaries?????

Monday, November 05, 2007

WASHINGTON — During recent Senate confirmation hearings for Michael Mukasey, President George W. Bush’s nominee to fill the vacant U.S. Attorney General position, Mukasey said that if he is confirmed, he will reevaluate the Justice Department’s obscenity law enforcement strategy.Senator Orrin Hatch, R-UT, raised the topic of adult entertainment, asserting that the Justice Department has in recent years compiled a “terrible record enforcing adult obscenity law.” Saying that “pornography and obscenity consumption harms individuals, families [and] communities,” Hatch asserted that the Justice Department in recent years had prosecuted “too narrow a range of obscenity.”

In his response, Mukasey appeared to agree with Hatch’s assessment, saying “I recognize that mainstream materials can have an effect of cheapening a society, objectifying women, and endangering children in a way that we can’t tolerate,” and promised to review the Justice Department’s current policy of prosecuting only “extreme” materials.

Asked for his reaction to Mukasey’s statement, Jeffrey Douglas, chairman of the Free Speech Coalition, told XBIZ that he was not worried that a major shift in obscenity prosecution strategy would take place at the Justice Department if Mukasey is confirmed.

“Frankly, that concerns me not one little bit,” Douglas said. “For any candidate looking to fill that position [Attorney General], this would be a typical response. Janet Reno might have said something very similar — it doesn’t mean that they have any intention of actually changing their prosecutorial strategy.”

Douglas noted that in the recent Five Star/JM Productions obscenity case, the jury ultimately convicted on only a single DVD out of the four in the indictment, even though much of the evidence showing that similar materials frequently were consumed in the relevant community was disallowed.

“When juries already are refusing to convict on material that can be described as ‘extreme,’ it seems naïve to believe that a future jury would turn around and convict on standard, run-of-the-mill hardcore,” Douglas said.http://www.xbiz.com/news/legal/85953

Is pornography a catalyst of sexual violence?Recent research suggests that the oppose is trueSteve Chapman November 5, 2007

In the 1980s, conservatives and feminists joined to fight a common nemesis: the spread of pornography. Unlike past campaigns to stamp out smut, this one was based not only on morality but also public safety. They argued that hard-core erotica was intolerable because it promoted sexual violence against women."

Pornography is the theory; rape is the practice," wrote feminist author Robin Morgan. In 1986, a federal commission concurred. Some kinds of pornography, it concluded, are bound to lead to "increased sexual violence." Indianapolis passed a law allowing women to sue producers for sexual assaults caused by material depicting women in "positions of servility or submission or display."

The campaign fizzled when the courts said the ordinance was an unconstitutional form of "thought control." Though the Bush administration has put new emphasis on prosecuting obscenity, on the grounds that it fosters violence against women, pornography is more available now than ever.That's due in substantial part to the rise of the Internet, where the United States alone has a staggering 244 million Web pages featuring erotic fare.

One Nielsen survey found that one out of every four users say they visited adult sites in the last month.So in the last two decades, we have conducted a vast experiment on the social consequences of such material. If the supporters of censorship were right, we should be seeing an unparalleled epidemic of sexual assault.

But all the evidence indicates they were wrong.

As raunch has waxed, rape has waned.This is part of a broad decrease in criminal mayhem. Since 1993, violent crime in America has dropped by 58 percent. But the progress in this one realm has been especially dramatic. Rape is down 72 percent and other sexual assaults have fallen by 68 percent. Even in the last two years, when the FBI reported upticks in violent crime, the number of rapes continued to fall.

Nor can the decline be dismissed as the result of underreporting. Many sexual assaults do go unreported, but there is no reason to think there is less reporting today than in the past. In fact, given everything that has been done to educate people about the problem and to prosecute offenders, victims are probably more willing to come forward than they used to be.

No one would say the current level of violence against women is acceptable. But the enormous progress in recent years is one of the most gratifying successes imaginable.How can it be explained? Perhaps the most surprising and controversial account comes from Clemson University economist Todd Kendall, who suggests that adult fare on the Internet may essentially inoculate against sexual assaults.

In a paper presented at Stanford Law School last year, he reported that, after adjusting for other differences, states where Internet access expanded the fastest saw rape decline the most. A 10 percent increase in Internet access, Kendall found, typically meant a 7.3 percent reduction in the number of reported rapes. For other types of crime, he found no correlation with Web use

What this research suggests is that sexual urges play a big role in the incidence of rape -- and that pornographic Web sites provide a harmless way for potential predators to satisfy those desires.That, of course, is only a theory, and the evidence he cites is not conclusive. States that were quicker to adopt the Internet may be different in ways that also serve to prevent rape. It's not hard to think of other explanations why sexual assaults have diminished so rapidly -- such as DNA analysis, which has been an invaluable tool in catching and convicting offenders.

Changing social attitudes doubtless have also played a role. Both young men and young women are more aware today of the boundaries between consensual and coercive sex. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, thinks the credit for progress against rape should go to federal funding under the Violence Against Women Act and to education efforts stressing that "no means no."But if expanding the availability of hard-core fare doesn't prevent rapes, we can be confident from the experience of recent years that it certainly doesn't cause such crimes. Whether you think porn is a constitutionally protected form of expression or a vile blight that should be eradicated, this discovery should come as very good news.

Is pornography a catalyst of sexual violence?Recent research suggests that the oppose is trueSteve Chapman November 5, 2007

In the 1980s, conservatives and feminists joined to fight a common nemesis: the spread of pornography. Unlike past campaigns to stamp out smut, this one was based not only on morality but also public safety. They argued that hard-core erotica was intolerable because it promoted sexual violence against women."

Pornography is the theory; rape is the practice," wrote feminist author Robin Morgan. In 1986, a federal commission concurred. Some kinds of pornography, it concluded, are bound to lead to "increased sexual violence." Indianapolis passed a law allowing women to sue producers for sexual assaults caused by material depicting women in "positions of servility or submission or display."

The campaign fizzled when the courts said the ordinance was an unconstitutional form of "thought control." Though the Bush administration has put new emphasis on prosecuting obscenity, on the grounds that it fosters violence against women, pornography is more available now than ever.That's due in substantial part to the rise of the Internet, where the United States alone has a staggering 244 million Web pages featuring erotic fare.

One Nielsen survey found that one out of every four users say they visited adult sites in the last month.So in the last two decades, we have conducted a vast experiment on the social consequences of such material. If the supporters of censorship were right, we should be seeing an unparalleled epidemic of sexual assault.

But all the evidence indicates they were wrong.

As raunch has waxed, rape has waned.This is part of a broad decrease in criminal mayhem. Since 1993, violent crime in America has dropped by 58 percent. But the progress in this one realm has been especially dramatic. Rape is down 72 percent and other sexual assaults have fallen by 68 percent. Even in the last two years, when the FBI reported upticks in violent crime, the number of rapes continued to fall.

Nor can the decline be dismissed as the result of underreporting. Many sexual assaults do go unreported, but there is no reason to think there is less reporting today than in the past. In fact, given everything that has been done to educate people about the problem and to prosecute offenders, victims are probably more willing to come forward than they used to be.

No one would say the current level of violence against women is acceptable. But the enormous progress in recent years is one of the most gratifying successes imaginable.How can it be explained? Perhaps the most surprising and controversial account comes from Clemson University economist Todd Kendall, who suggests that adult fare on the Internet may essentially inoculate against sexual assaults.

In a paper presented at Stanford Law School last year, he reported that, after adjusting for other differences, states where Internet access expanded the fastest saw rape decline the most. A 10 percent increase in Internet access, Kendall found, typically meant a 7.3 percent reduction in the number of reported rapes. For other types of crime, he found no correlation with Web use

What this research suggests is that sexual urges play a big role in the incidence of rape -- and that pornographic Web sites provide a harmless way for potential predators to satisfy those desires.That, of course, is only a theory, and the evidence he cites is not conclusive. States that were quicker to adopt the Internet may be different in ways that also serve to prevent rape. It's not hard to think of other explanations why sexual assaults have diminished so rapidly -- such as DNA analysis, which has been an invaluable tool in catching and convicting offenders.

Changing social attitudes doubtless have also played a role. Both young men and young women are more aware today of the boundaries between consensual and coercive sex. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, thinks the credit for progress against rape should go to federal funding under the Violence Against Women Act and to education efforts stressing that "no means no."But if expanding the availability of hard-core fare doesn't prevent rapes, we can be confident from the experience of recent years that it certainly doesn't cause such crimes. Whether you think porn is a constitutionally protected form of expression or a vile blight that should be eradicated, this discovery should come as very good news.

Well, as more enlightened views of relationships come forth, there will always be people who insist on maintaining the failed status quo. Once such persoon seems to be Margo Howard.

Ms. Howard writes an advice column, published in daily newspapers and on Yahoo!. This morning, one of the people wanting advice was a woman who is in a happy polyamorous relationship.

Poor woman should have know better than to ask advice from a mainstreamer stuck in the middle of last millenium.

Read on:

Kind of Like Unofficial PolygamyMargo HowardThu Nov 1,2:00 AM ET

DEAR MARGO: I am a very happily married woman with a problem:well-intentioned friends and family. My husband and I are polyamorous and notashamed of it. We have wonderful girlfriends who are special and a part of ourfamily. The problem is that people assume we are on the verge of divorce, etc.Other than an indelicate "Butt out," is there any way to get them to see that weare really happy and stable? We've been married for five years.--- HAPPILYPOLY

(For square readers like me who might need a trip to the dictionary, I will save you some time. "Polyamorous" is the name for multiple sexual relationships within marriage -- in this case involving both spouses.)

Maybe Margo should have gone to a dictionary....or better yet, found the alt.polyamory FAQ which has a more descriptive defintion of poly:

Polyamory means "loving more than one". This love may be sexual,emotional, spiritual, or any combination thereof, according to the desires andagreements of the individuals involved, but you needn't wear yourself out tryingto figure out ways to fit fondness for apple pie, or filial piety, or a passionfor the Saint Paul Saints baseball club into it. "Polyamorous" is also used as adescriptive term by people who are open to more than one relationship even ifthey are not currently involved in more than one. (Heck, some are involved inless than one.) Some people think the definition is a bit loose, but it's got tobe fairly roomy to fit the wide range of poly arrangements out there.

Anyway, Ms Howard con-TIN-uuuues........

DEAR HAP: You may not be ashamed of it, but you have to know that thisarrangement would strike most people as being somewhere between odd and morallywrong, it being quite far from the norm. I am not sure why you felt the need tobreeze it around that you and your husband have "wonderful girlfriends."Because you have, however, essentially invited people to "butt in," you area little bit stuck in terms of asking them to butt out. I guess the only way toprove yourselves happy and stable is for you two to continue to thrive withyour, uh, wonderful girlfriends.--- MARGO, BEWILDEREDLY

DEAR BELWILDERED: Thanks for the backhanded salute to these nice people who have found a way to be happy outside of the constricted norms of society. My concern is that they thought they were speaking with someone with an open mind and heart, not someone who seem quick t o judge but held back because they seem...parish the thought....happy.

How many people in traditional relationships can truly say they are happy? Considering that the divorce rate in this country continutes to hover around 50%, one would think not.

Maybe, Ms. Howard, you should check out your facts before judgment, and truly wish these folks well...without the sneer.

Monday, October 29, 2007

You might enjoy restraining your partner.The more the merrier is one of your sexual mottos ... well, as long as the people are cool -- unless you're drunk. But I suspect you and your partner would enjoy inviting a few friends over to play.

You and your partner dig shiny digs.

You might like applying sharp objects like needles and pinwheels to your partner's skin ... so tender and delicate are the small indentations as you press inward.

Wouldn't your partner look sexy with a gag in his or her mouth? Thought you'd see it that way. Mmmmmph mmmm mmmmmr. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I can see you may like to be gagged by your partner.

Not that there's anything wrong with that! Smack smack smack goes you hand on your partner's smooth bottom. It looks so much better when it's nice and red. He Or She seems to enjoy it, too! Smack smack smack goes your partner's hand on your smooth bottom. Is it the burning sensation you enjoy? The firm snap of flesh on flesh? Does it matter? Didn't think so.

You'd really like to use a violet wand or TENS unit on your partner. The squirming and the wiggling are a big turn on for you. You like the sensation of electricity surging through your skin. Part tingling, part tickling, all turn on.

You would like walking on top of your partner. Be careful you don't crush him or her ... or is that part of the appeal? You would be turned on by carrying out a sexual act with your partner where you could be seen by someone else. It really increases the thrill. Licking or sucking on certain bodyparts of your partner might really turn you on. Is it his or her hands? His Or Her feet? Something else?

You may really enjoy your partner orally teasing certain parts of your body. Role-playing with your partner is something you would probably enjoy. Whether this is playing doctor and patient, nun and student, or cowboy and horse is up to you. Inserting your hand into your partner's body would provide you a special thrill. You'd like your partner to insert his or her hand into your body. Quite stretchy and tight at the same time, no?

Leather is a pleasurable thing for you and your partner to play with. The smell and the texture are the markings of a fun night. You'd probably enjoy masturbating together with your partner. So what are you waiting for?! You would enjoy calling your partner names. Do you think he or she enjoys that too? Damn straight, if they're willing to be around you!

Listen here, bitch, you'd probably get off on your partner calling you names in the bedroom. Never do people have more control over others than when administering an enema. You'd like to have that power over your partner, wouldn't you? You'd love watching the liquid gold shoot from yourself onto the body of your partner. Such urinary delights you do not share lightly, or with just anyone. Well, mostly. The warmth of your partner's piss as it hits your flesh appeals greatly to you.

Which butt plug would you like to use on your partner first? Start out small, or give him or her a shock? So many things you could do to bring your partner unforgettable anal pleasure. You are turned on by the thought of sucking your partner off. Not much more than that needs to be said, does it? You'd love to be orally pleasured by your partner. It's good that way, isn't it? You two should try it out!

You'd get off on the pain of your partner. The lines of pleasure and pain blur, don't they? It's no fun for you if you let your partner cum right away, so you'd rather make him or her wait ... and wait. You tease, you! You would enjoy your partner teasing you ... making you wait to orgasm until you can't take it anymore. How would you like to train your partner?

There are so many things you could do together. Where would you start? You find the idea of being trained appealing. Perhaps your partner has something in mind for you. You are probably turned on by the idea of researching your partner online, in the hopes that you might find some juicy secret about him or her. The thought of your partner (or someone else, for that matter) performing an Internet search on you is appealing ... and you might even leave saucy tidbits for anyone who takes the time to look. Body hair on your partner turns you on ... it's very soft and fluffy.

You'd really enjoy looking at pornography. Erotic stories have an appeal for you.

What are you wearing? You might be interested in having phone sex with your partner, if you don't already do so. When real-life means fail, you're probably more than happy to engage in cyber sex with your partner. You'd most likely be totally thrilled to have the opportunity to listen (or read) in on your partner (or someone else) having phone/cyber-sex. The exhibitionist in you is probably turned on by the idea of someone listening in to your phone/cyber-sex adventures. Would that add to the thrill?

The first thing you must do is Take The Quiz, if if you haven't already.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Fires Scorch More Than 40,000 AcresPOSTED: 6:34 am PDT October 21, 2007UPDATED: 10:25 am PDT October 22, 2007MALIBU, Calif. -- Wildfires fanned by fierce desert winds forced the evacuations of nearly 250,000 people Monday in San Diego County, including hundreds who were being moved by school bus and ambulance from a hospital and nursing homes.

More than a dozen wildfires had engulfed Southern California, killing at least one person, injuring dozens more and threatening scores of structures.A San Diego-area fire official said that the raging wildfires got "dramatically worse" overnight.

"[The situation] is worse than many of us could've imagined," said Bill Metcalf, chief of the North County Fire Protection District. "It was a long night. A dangerous night."

Metcalf said that one of the major issues that firefighters are dealing with is that residents did not listen to early evacuation orders.

"One of issues is that we're not able to do any suppression because resources are being used to do rescues," he said. "People didn't evacuate at all or didn't until it was too late."

Another fire in the area prompted officials to order the town of Ramona to be evacuated earlier Monday. Officials said several structures on the edge of town have been burned.

One person died in a fire near San Diego. Four firefighters and at least 10 other people were hospitalized.There are nearly a dozen wildfires scorching parts of Southern California.

Firefighters in San Diego County are battling about a dozen fires that have burned more than 40,000 acres. Firefighters said Sunday night that they are overwhelmed.

In Malibu, about 700 firefighters have been working to protect hundreds of luxury homes in upscale communities.

Among the structures destroyed by the fire are the landmark Castle Kashan, a fortress-like home with turrets and arched windows. The owner of the home had time to gather some items -- including Elvis Presley's Army fatigues -- before flames engulfed her home.It's believed the fire was sparked by a downed power line.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Friday, September 28, 2007

These days, when we say nuke, we're probably talking about zapping a couple of hot dogs in the 'ol microwave.

But in the 50's and 60's, "nuke" had a more ominous meaning. For we had seen what the only two A-bombs ever dropped in war did to two major Japanese cities. We say the skin blown off bodies. We saw the festering cancers. And we new that the only thing that seperated mankind from a most terrible coda was one guy in Washington or Moscow having a real bad day.We thought it was all over in the 80's. After all there was glasnost and the fall of the wall and Putin and the people standing in front of the Russian army.

We thought the nightmare was over.

Could have fooled us.

Quietly, persistantly, under cover of bin Ladin, the Eagle and the Bear have resumed in earnest thier favorite pastime....finding new and more effecient way of blowing away the other's collective ass.

That's assuming they never stopped.

Two stories slipped under the radar. They both come from the Russian news agancy Novasti.One, I have to thank Drudgie for. It mentioned that the Russians vow to retaliate if weapons were deployed in space (http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070927/81302492.html). But through a link in that story, I read something ever more ominous: Russia and the USA have been developing new bombs under our noses! Russia has been playing with a new vacuum bomb, while the US has been countering with an even more destructive 14-ton super bomb (http://www.en.rian.ru/world/20070913/78518873.html).

This serves as a stark reminder that, while we have been fretting about rank ameteurs piddling around with dirty bombs in Skyway luggage (pull, not carry your destruction!), the professionals who invented the WMD in the first place continue to work on new models that would make the former look like a wet firecracker.

When I was young, during the Cuban crisis, I remember listening to my local Lawton, OK radio station, KSWO, and hearing the top of theo hour newscasts from ABC. I knew that nearby Ft. Sill, a major military training bases now and then, would be a target, and at the tender age of 8, I worried if I was falling asleep for the last time.

It was a nightmare then, something no 8 year old should dream about.

The problem is that, the Mutual Assured Destruction game we were playing depended on onr fragile assumption......both sides had leaders who were sane. We do not have that assurance today.

And so the nightmare continues. Thousands of missles pointed at the US and Russia, poised to be fired at anytime. And while we worry about a dapper madman with an impossible-to-pronounce name and, seemingly, Ann Coulter as a speechwriter, maybe we should worry that our exisitance may stand on the shaky ground on which our "leader" from Texas may have one bad day.

..> Kate McCann has been warned she could be charged with the"accidental" killing of her daughter Madeleine after Portuguese police directlyasked her whether she was behind the toddler's disappearance.

In anextraordinary twist, Mrs McCann's family said detectives now believed she causedthe four-year-old's death in their holiday apartment, then hid the body beforereturning a month later to dispose of it.

For the last year and a half, it seemed, I have been faced with a world-wide plea to find missing Maddy McCann. That blond hair, wide smile, and sweet face becoming the theme for many a MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and Yahoo 360 page. A channel on YouTube was created to find her. Laura Bush and David & Victoria Beckham have joined in the plea. Millions of people around the world have fallen in love with this little moppet and thier clean-cut parents.

I could have saved them the trouble.

Remember Susan Smith? Or the lady in Texas who drowned her kids because she thought Jesus told her to do it? How about Paula Sims, who reported one daughter missing in 1986 and another missing three years later? Or Diane Downs, who claimed that a stranger waved her car down on a deserted road, then killed her daughter?

And it goes on and on and on. We have gone through this all before. Clean-cut young mothers and dads, the Perfect Parents from Red hetrosexual America, wind up killing thier kids, dumping them, then finding a way to go on the Todaygoodmorningamericaearly Shows, weeping in front of sympathetic hostesses, pleading with the "guilty parties" to bring thier little baby home.

Right.

Having almost become one of those darling little kids achiveing room temperature the hard way myself, my level of skepticism rises every time something like this happens. Yes, I really do want to believe that this time, the parents really are sincere, really are the victims in all this, and that the perp in question truly is some broken-nosed Tom Sizemore clone with a deeze-dems-dose vocabulary.

And what pains is seeing people fall for it over and over and over again. To say something would be like blasphemy. Kinda like saying that OJ didn't do it or something. We truly want this nice people to be the innocent party.

Maybe one day, they will be.

Or worse than that is the scenerio: a family craving money and attention creates a situation in which one member of the family "dissapears," the parents go on the usual talk shows, various book and film deals signed. All created on purpose, either with the "missing" kid in the safe hands of friends, or people who have agreed to take the rap.......or in the worst case, the "missing kid" is dead, but the family cashes in, as that would be the motive.

Yes, that scenario is as sick as you can get. But how do we know if it has not happened before. Maybe even in this case?

We don't, and we must keep in mind that (A) Mrs. McCann is only a suspect and (B) little Maddie is still missing.

And (C) this will happen again. And (D) we will fall for it......again.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Welcome to our monthly bitch-slapping of one Rev. Donald Wildmon, affectionately known as either No-Neck or Fat-Neck, depending on whether you are viewing him on a old picture or a new video.

To get you up to speed, Wildmon, and his uber-Xtian American Family Association has been on the case of the Ford Motor Co. ever since they backed out of an agreement to join hands with them in fighting what the AFA calls "the Gay Agenda." This was after meeting with homosexual leaders who told them that if they did capitulate to Wildmon, whatever "agenda" they had would include buy cars from anyone but Ford.

Since then, the AFA has been steering their own boycott.

And every month they crow about their success, taking claim for the company's down sales for the last year and a half.

For instance, this month's missive:

Boycott helps drive Ford sales down 19.1% in JulyFord's support for homosexual agenda hurting company – your phone call neededDear Donald,Sales of all Ford Motor Company automobiles fell 19.1% in July, compared to a year ago. Since AFA began a boycott of Ford in March 2006, sales have dropped in 15 of the 17 months. While the boycott isn't totally responsible for the drop in sales, it has played a major role.AFA has identified Ford as a leading promoter of the homosexual agenda, including same-sex marriage. AFA began a boycott of Ford after the automobile maker reneged on an agreement with AFA to cease promotion of the homosexual lifestyle. Nearly 750,000 individuals have signed the AFA sponsored Boycott Ford Pledge. For more information on the Ford boycott and to sign the pledge, click here.Despite the drastic drop in sales, not a single homosexual group has come to Ford's defense nor publicly encouraged homosexuals to purchase Ford automobiles. AFA asked Ford to take a stand similar to that of Wal-Mart, which will not support or oppose controversial issues. Ford declined, choosing to continue financially supporting the homosexual movement.Ford sales recordfor past 17 months.March 20065.0April 20066.6May 20061.9June 20066.8July 20064.1August 200611.6Sept. 20064.7Oct. 20068.1Nov. 20069.7Dec. 200612.8Jan. 200719.0Feb. 200713.0March 20079.0April 200713.0May 20076.8June 20078.1July 200719.1

This is the part where I mention that whatever the AFA is doing, it probably has no effect on Ford's bad fortune....which may not be as bad as it looks.

True Ford is down 19.1% over last year, BUT so is DaimlerChrysler by the same amount (in fact, it's Chrysler Group was only down about 8% whilst Mercedes-Benz was down about 13% [source: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/01/ap3976917.html] This probably says more about the fact the Mr. Z sold the wrong end of the company....but that's another blog!)

But let's move further. IF a boycott is to be successful, it has to include the entire company. SO explain to me, Donny dear, why during your vaunted boycott, Ford's crossovers, the Edge and the Lincoln MKX were up 40% (in fact Edge recently was recognized as the industry's top performing new vehicle in J.D. Power and Associates' 2007 Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout Study)? And Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner were up in sales 2%. Not to mention Ford's Gas Guzzlers the Expedition (up 22%) and Lincoln Navigator (up 8%).

In fact the ENTIRE Lincoln line is up in sales for the TENTH MONTH IN A ROW! That's 10 of the 17 months you included in your boycott, dumbass.

But the best indicator of the success of any boycott is the bottom line, Rev. And this is where you have met your Waterloo. Second quarter earnings for FMC were $750,000,000. And that gives Ford Corporate its first quarterly PROFIT in two years.

PROFIT, Rev. Wildmon.

Meaning with all your tantrums and all your genuflecting, you still could not bring your archenemy to its knees. They made money during your so-called boycott.

Maybe you should expand your efforts. It'll be good for the economy.

Or better yet, just give up. To be honest, I have better things to do every first of the month.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

(CNN) -- At least three people were killed when an interstate bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed Wednesday evening, plunging cars and chunks of concrete into the Mississippi River below.

There were "lots" of injuries, said the state Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department.

The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET). There were 50 to 100 cars on the bridge at the time, according to early estimates.

Lt. Amelia Huffman of the Minneapolis Police Department told CNN affiliate KARE it was "not clear at this point what caused the collapse" of the Interstate 35W bridge near University Avenue.

"We have personnel there in the rescue effort," she said. "I have never seen anything remotely like this before."

Shortly after the collapse, a tractor trailer was burning on the bridge.

Rescue workers are using boats to help remove people from the water, bringing them up on the river bank.

Aerial footage showed the middle of the bridge caved in, lying in the Mississippi River, with cars both on top and submerged in the water.

Witnesses told CNN a school bus filled with children was on the bridge when it collapsed, but they also said the bus did not drop into the water and it appeared that the children had all been evacuated.

The main part of the collapsed span is not submerged, but the span clearly separated from the land-based sections of the highway on both the north and south ends of the bridge.Mark Lacroix, who lives on the 20th floor of an apartment building near the bridge, told CNN he saw the last seconds of the collapse.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

America's favorite crybaby is on the war path against Liberal blog Daily Kos, who seems to, along with a certain MSNBC employee, has his number. To wit...

Here Is DK's response.....

An O'Reilly-Free Postby HunterTue Jul 31, 2007 at 10:55:14 AM PDTYesterday was a draining day. First, we had to wait and see if Bill O'Reilly was going to rip our site asunder using only the massive gravitational pull of his own ego. (Funny story there -- we're still here. Apparently ego is like hydrogen, because even his Hindenburg-sized head didn't have much weight in the grand scheme of things.)

But what was really draining was pointing out Bill O'Reilly's tawdry and abusive behavior towards even his own coworkers. It may have been a good thing to do -- showing Bill O's fans exactly what kind of craven jackass he is -- but it had the side effect of briefly turning the site into a Bill O'Reilly hardcore porn site. And nobody wants to look at that crap. I mean -- ugh.

So today I'm not thinking I'll talk much about Bill O'Reilly. I won't talk about his bizarre, habitual lying. I won't point out, yet again, that he does things on a regular basis far worse than Imus ever did, but that he gets away with it because Fox News has no ethical standards to maintain in the first place, and so is incapable either shame or dishonor. I won't mention his constant accusations that those that oppose him are Nazis, or Communists, or anti-American, or dissect Fox's particularly virulent brand of yellow journalism, as personified by clowns like O'Reilly, Hannity, Gibson and others.

And I won't bother mentioning that, according to AMERICAblog, Home Depot has backed out of advertising on Bill's show. (Well, maybe -- it seems they can't quite figure out if they're advertising on it in the first place.)Mind you, this hasn't just been a petty squabble. It's important -- very important. Yellow journalism, Bill O'Reilly's stock in trade, is more of a danger to an American democracy than any Republican in Washington, with the possible exception of Secret Robot President Dick Cheney. We cannot have honest debates over the desired future of America if that debate is sabotaged by the fundamental dishonesty of a fake "press", willing to manipulate or manufacture information in service to one party or another. Political blogs would likely not even exist in their present form if it had not been for the many outrages foisted upon us in these recent years by dissolving journalistic integrity and a compliant and slackjawed national pundit corps.

But on the other hand, putting Bill O'Reilly workplace sexual harassment porn on our site was like taking a bite out of a gym sock. It was too much. So let's enjoy this Bill O'Reilly free post, in which we briefly do not discuss the exploits of this gigantic, bloviating jackass.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Bisexuality blues: Why does everyone want us to pick a side?

by Kia Momtazi

People have been screwing around with same-sex partners for centuries, from pederasty in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire to shudo, homosexual practices among Japanese samurai in the 17th century. But in spite of hundreds of years of same-sex activity, our current understanding of homo- and heterosexuality didn't even exist until the evolution of 19th-century psychology. Before that, while actions were understood as homosexual, the people who performed them weren't labeled as such.

The thing is, it's the labels that cause all the problems. What, exactly, does it take to make one gay or straight? And what about the vast, frequently disregarded territory of bisexuality?

The list of famous bisexuals in recent history is rather stacked on the female side: Edith Piaf, Anais Nin, Frida Kahlo, Marlene Dietrich and poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Of course, this is most likely because there's a lot less societal tolerance for masculine experimentation and sexual fluidity; if you're a male celebrity who's been known to sleep with other men, you get shuffled off into the “Famous Gays” file, and that's that.

Alan Cumming is the sole contemporary bisexual male celebrity that comes to mind. His female counterparts include Margaret Cho, Sandra Bernhard, performance artist Miranda July and Ani DiFranco—and, boy, the girls were pissed when she went off and married that dude.

But why? Why is there such limited tolerance for people who have the capacity to mentally and physically connect with both genders?

Dr. Alfred Kinsey's sex research and his development of the Kinsey Scale was meant to illustrate that there are many shades of gray in the sexuality spectrum. Most people, Kinsey believed, fall somewhere in between.

After all, there doesn't seem to be any concrete definition of bisexuality. Are you bisexual if you merely fantasize about sleeping with people of your own gender? Does a one-time same-sex encounter make you bi? What about if you only have relationships with the opposite sex, but squeeze a few same-sex hookups in during the off-season?

What if men turn you on physically but you feel deep emotional connections only with women, or vice versa?

Regardless of any specific qualifications, it seems like the overriding attitude from society is still that bisexuality doesn't exist. When all that Brokeback gay-cowboy controversy swept the nation a year ago, how come nobody stopped to consider that—featured as they were in relationships with both sexes—maybe those two hot ranchers were actually bi?

The answer, sadly, is because most people think men who identify as bisexual are just stopping over on the train to Gayville, as one tired saying goes, and bisexual women are really just straight women who let go of their inhibitions in college.

Beyond that, a person who insists on calling herself bisexual is often disregarded as a wishy-washy fence-sitter who simply doesn't know what she really wants.

I have a hard time with this one, because while I've had serious relationships with both men and women, I'd be lying if I said I didn't often feel confused. At least gay people can say with confidence that they've always known—since they were born, since they grew pit hair, or whatever—they were gay. I haven't always known anything.

I behaved like a regular straight girl for most of my adolescence but always felt open to other possibilities. When the opportunity finally arose, I took it, but the experience was oddly inconclusive. Was it the very thing I'd always been waiting for, a phenomenally more fulfilling experience than my sexual encounters with men? Not really. But was it a disgusting mistake, a lapse of judgment I never wanted to repeat? Not at all.

A few years and boyfriends after that, I ended up falling in love with a woman.

That was confusing, too. Now that I had a girlfriend, did it mean I'd really been a lesbian all along? Was that why, out at bars with my straight friends, I hardly ever thought as many boys were cute as they did? Did that explain why shaving my legs had always been low on my list of priorities?

But I couldn't be gay—I'd never even heard the Indigo Girls and I still got all tingly whenever I saw movies with Robert Downey Jr. or the guy from Motorcycle Diaries. I told myself I was bisexual and tried to leave it at that, but a voice inside my head kept pestering me. Pick a side, it nagged, just pick a side.

That relationship ended with no sex and an excessive amount of drama, so once she was gone, I quickly went out and slept with a bunch more dudes, enjoying myself tremendously at first. The encounters seemed so simple, so comparatively uncomplicated. No lesbian drama, no pesky emotions, just a simple act involving a real penis. How nice.

But, of course, it's not that simple. Casual sex wears thin after awhile, and the search for a long-term partner—either male or female—begins again.

People willing to accept the existence of bisexuality tend to incorrectly assume that bisexuals have it easier, simply because the pool of potential mates is twice as big. But that's just not the case. You can't be gay enough for the gays or straight enough for the straights. In my experience, most gay women see bisexual gals as fickle, disease-spreading infiltrators of their exclusive ranks. Contrary to stereotype, straight men seem pretty threatened by it, too. Right when you think they're going to propose a three-way with you and your best friend, they get all thrown off by the realization that you can happily engage in sex without a penis. And then there's the unpleasant assumption from the majority of both camps that if you're bisexual, you're a nympho who'll fuck just about anybody and are incapable of being monogamous.

Depending on who you're trying to date, it's really hard to know when to come forth with that information. If it wasn't something they already knew about me, I initially thought it was a first-date topic; if they couldn't accept it, then they weren't worth dating. Now I'm not so sure. As much as I want to be out and proud, I'm starting to see my bisexuality as more akin to a colostomy bag—something to be kept secret until enough love has grown between us that it might not matter.